Up late talking games & writing? You're...

Games: So the wife and I put the baby to bed a little earlier (and easier) than usual, so we ended up with a bit more time left in the evening than we usually do.


After an episode of Torchwood (Season Two, and wow, Gwen is a moron) we were kind of spinning our wheels until I remembered that I bought Heavy Rain's “The Taxidermist” DLC quite a while ago, and had never gotten around to it. Since we're both fans of David Cage’s games, more or less, that seemed like a good direction to go.

The key word there? SEEMED.

At 9:09PM, I had pulled the HR disc out of my stack, had it spinning in the PS3, and was promptly greeted by a required update message.

I really don't know what I was thinking, since I had kind of assumed we'd be able to play it right off the bat. Naturally, there was an update that needed to happen, just like there ALWAYS is every time I turn the machine on. Then, after the update downloaded, it needed to install.


We waited a while, and after the install completed, the game started up. However, I hadn't realized that there wasn't enough free space on the hard drive and Heavy Rain is another of the oh-so-wonderful forced-install PS3 games. It wouldn't play until I deleted some data.

I have to say, I find few things as irritating as a console game that will not play without being installed to the drive.

Disc.

Console.

Turn on.

Play.

This is a very simple concept that has been happening without issue for a few generations now. The fact that I have to turn my system on at least half an hour before I intend to actually play never fails to infuriate me.

Anyway, getting back to the sequence of events... after scanning the drive and seeing what was expendable, I axed the DC Universe Online beta content, and was a little taken aback at how long it took to delete. With that gone, there was enough space to install Heavy Rain, and so that process began.


I meant to time exactly how long the install of the game itself took, but I was getting a little heated by this point and I forgot. Regardless, it took quite a bit of time. In fact, I actually had enough time to straighten up my office and tidy up the rest of the house. I did a few dishes. Literally.

After the game had completely installed, I jumped into the menus to figure out how to access the DLC. As I was trying to navigate, it seemed as though my controller didn't work properly. After a moment or two, I realized that the game now automatically defaults to use the Move as the primary means of interface. I don't even own a Move controller yet, and the console did not auto-detect that I was using a wireless pad. A small issue, perhaps, but still irritating. However, that was not nearly as irritating as finding out that for some reason, the Taxidermist DLC that I had previously downloaded needed to be downloaded again.


After the series of downloads and installs I'd just been through, this one took the cake. Still, by this point I was bound and determined to play the damn thing, so I began to re-download the purchase and walked away to do some deep breathing and calming exercises.

The DLC download completed, installed itself, and the wife and I finally began to ACTUALLY PLAY The Taxidermist at 10:43PM – a little more than an hour and a half after we originally intended to begin.


Now, talking about The Taxidermist DLC itself, I didn't think it was bad at all. It was essentially one scene taking place in a house that had five different endings, and it was definitely creepy and interesting enough to keep our attention for two of those five. We both also found it interesting to return to Heavy Rain after such a long time away from it… the controls felt alien and unfamiliar, but we were quickly reminded of what a great job it does in terms of creating emotion and tension. Was it worth $5? I think I'd say so, considering that I've paid more for worse, and that I picked HR as one of my top games of the past year.

So, we definitely enjoyed The Taxidermist, but we both felt as though we had seen enough by 11:26PM… about forty-five minutes after pressing start.

That's right, it took twice as long to access the content as it did to play it through to completion two separate times.


What's wrong with the PS3? That is.